On September 25th, "Europeans bought the explosion of Chinese electric blankets" rushed to the hot search on Weibo.
In order to spend the winter, European residents urgently stocked heating equipment, and Chinese manufacturers set off a production boom.
Although it is still summer in Europe, the continent is plunged into its biggest energy crisis in decades as gas supplies from Russia become unstable, industry experts said. Against this backdrop, China's exports of heating equipment such as electric heaters, electric blankets and air source heat pumps have seen explosive growth this year.
According to data from the General Administration of Customs of China, in July this year alone, 27 EU countries imported 1.29 million electric blankets from China, an increase of nearly 150% month-on-month. For heaters exported to the EU, the sales season has also been extended by about a month. Many importers placed additional orders for heaters, which brought a wave of "replenishment orders".
Given that European consumers have increased their purchases of heating equipment ahead of the coming winter, from January to July, the export value of China's electric blankets was US$33.4 million, leading other home appliance categories with a year-on-year growth rate of 97%. The scale of export volume of equipment increased by 23% year-on-year.
Source: General Administration of Customs
Compared with the depression of the European energy industry, in China, on the other side of the Eurasian continent, many electric blanket factories are producing at full capacity. Liu Hu, a manager of an electric blanket factory in Dongguan, said that the current sales of electric blankets this year are three times that of the same period last year, which is also the best record in the past five years.
"Export orders have doubled compared to last year, and orders increased in July." On September 24, the highest temperature in Dongguan was 34°C, but Liu Hu was staring at the production of electric blankets for winter supplies in the factory.
According to Liu Hu, as early as May, the factory made a market assessment and concluded that the electric blanket market will explode. There are two main reasons. One is the rise in natural gas prices due to geopolitical conflicts, and the other is the extremely high temperature this summer. Then there will be a great cold. Since June, the factory equipment has been running 24 hours a day, in three shifts, and the recruitment has been specially expanded for this purpose. The electric blankets in the factory are mainly sold to Europe and North America, and the current monthly sales volume is about 100,000.
"The winter in Europe is long, and some countries will be very cold until April, especially in the northern areas. Our factory's customers in these countries are stocking electric blankets in large quantities." Liu Hu said that workers are currently producing October, Order in November.
He predicts that sales of electric blankets in Europe and the United States will peak on November 25.
The European market has been the main growth engine for China's home appliance exports. Demand for imported electric heaters has surged in European countries, especially in Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Germany. Import demand for electric blankets also more than doubled in Greece, Italy, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands.
Economists pointed out that in the context of soaring energy prices and natural gas shortages, Chinese manufacturing has become the "stabilizer" of the global supply chain. China's high-quality and reasonably priced heating equipment will be more and more favored by European consumers.
